Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is ques­tion­ing why bak­eries and dou­bles mak­ers are not low­er­ing their prices in the wake of an an­nounced de­crease in flour from three top pro­duc­ers.

On his Face­book page this morn­ing, Dr Row­ley post­ed an im­age of a Guardian ar­ti­cle which quot­ed a bak­ery own­er as say­ing that low­er flour prices are not good enough to re­duce the cost of dou­bles and bread.

Dr Row­ley said, "So a high­er flour price was enough to see an in­stant rise in the price of bread but a low­er flour price is not enough to low­er the price of dou­bles and bread?"

In a me­dia re­lease this morn­ing The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) com­mend­ed its mem­bers, Nu­trim­ix, Na­tion­al Flour Mills and Sheik Lisha Lim­it­ed for an­nounc­ing their in­tend­ed price de­crease on flour in the near fu­ture.

A TTMA state­ment said, "The de­ci­sion by these com­pa­nies to re­duce flour prices due to the glob­al de­crease in price of grain in­di­cates that man­u­fac­tur­ers con­tin­ue to be con­scious of the im­pact their prod­ucts have on the cost of liv­ing for con­sumers. The domi­no ef­fect of this glob­al de­crease in the price of grain high­lights the po­ten­tial im­pact of ex­ter­nal fac­tors on man­u­fac­tur­ers."